Word: marathons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...McCoy's 1935 novel of the same title, a book which achieved an underground reputation (particularly in Paris) as one of the best of the first existential works of American fiction. It tells the story of a group of down-and-out Depression refugees who participate in a dance marathon, hoping against hope to cop the contest's $1500 prize...
...dance marathon a craze largely unknown to the post-war generation, is one of the saddest cultural artifacts of the Great Depression. These widely publicized exercises in masochism, in which couples would compete to see who could stay on a dance floor the longest (sometimes two and three months), were actually the cruelest of promotional gimmicks. The businessmen who ran them charged admission to the sadistic audiences who watched, solicited business "sponsors" for the couples-and cleaned up in the process. Even the grand prize offered to the winners would be a phony: the marathon's "bills" would suddenly...
...movie, director Sydney Pollack has kept the action almost entirely within the seedy California beach-side dance hall where the novel's marathon takes place. The film covers 60-odd days of the spectacle in two hours-and, after it's over, all sixty days are real to you. The color is sickly; the machinations of the contest are unbelievably brutal; the physical and emotional crack-ups of the participants are staggering and sometimes all but impossible to watch...
...game is something. The marathon is a handy metaphor for just about everything that's wrong with America: capitalistic manipulation and dehumanization: the physical and spiritual bankruptcy of the California frontier; the war mentality of the competitive nature of American life. Much of this is brought home (sometimes too explicitly) by the frighteningly familiar em???, played by Gig Young...
Anyone wishing to run must meet one of three qualifications: 1) he must have completed the B. A. A. or other sanctioned marathon; 2) he must have completed two sanctioned ten-mile races during the past year or 3) he must have his entry certified by an area long-distance running chairman or by a qualified coach...